The Bound Ones Final Draft: Cages; Night Thoughts, Day Dreams
#1 of The Bound Ones Final Draft
Cages
Dizzy, sick and sticky with blood, he awoke. He shook his head to clear it, but could not rid himself of the nauseous sensation of swaying.
"Rhys? Rhys! Wake up! Oh, gods, please, wake up!"
A loud, metallic clang assailed his ears and the swaying grew worse, until he felt certain he was about to fall, or throw up. Or both.
"Shut up, Achar!" someone snarled with murderous intent. "Let him sleep. And let me sleep, too!"
Sola? he wondered, forcing sore eyes to open. Dark lines broke his vision into segments less than a hand's breadth each. Swinging his head to either side, he found himself surrounded, even to the ceiling where they converged.
Another solid clank jarred him into awareness and Achar shouted his name again.
"Knock it off!" he roared. His claws snicked the air in futile effort to steady himself. He turned to tear the mewling voice, tear it and silence it, but what he saw stopped him cold, savage words and savage actions both. A young dragon, yellow-gold, dangled before him in an iron cage, simpering softly.
Achar locked eyes with him and lit up like the face of the sun. "You're all right!" he cried. His excited motions smashed their cages together again, which was no good for the older dragon's head.
"That's enough!" Rhys said. The gray-green clamped on to one of the iron bars and hid his eyes behind his hand, waiting for the color to come back into the world, and the undulating motion to go out of it. "Damn you, hold still."
A soft and frankly amused voice drifted from above: "I told you to leave him alone."
Rhys searched his dim surroundings. The cavern was a high forest of cages, chains and pulleys, far more than could have fit on a single level. Far more than would be filled in a single battle, but the Pythians waged their endless war in all directions at once. In a few, he could make out the form of a sleeping or injured dragon, concentrated in little clumps at varying heights. Siwans, some of them, he could just make out the knobbly shape of the horns, but also others with strange configurations of spikes and plates that he had never seen before.
"Here," she said. "Up here."
He could fit his muzzle partway though the bars, and by standing and craning his neck, he could just distinguish her dark face peering down at him. "Sola?"
She rolled her weight against the side of her cage, tilting it so he could see her smile. He wished she hadn't done that.
"My gods, Sola. What happened?"
"We lost," she replied, flicking a bloody teardrop away from her mouth.
The calm certainty of her words coupled with the sight of her wound raised a cold ache inside of him. They had lost . . . Then they had lost everything. They had lost, and they were still alive. Too many of them were still alive. If the gods were merciful, some of the wounded--perhaps some badly wounded--might not make it through the night. Others might find respite at their own claws, a coward's death, but so much happier than the alternative.
He did not doubt his own survival; most of the blood on his scales was not his own, and if the blow that knocked him unconscious was going to kill him, he would not have wakened at all. Achar, too, seemed barely scraped. Did the gods so favor the foolish and the young?
Sola was neither young nor foolish. Her face was divided by a neat, diagonal line, the sweep of a sharp blade. Gore trickled from the incision, thickened with clots of blood, and maybe little pieces of her eye, if there was anything left of it. He would have killed the dragon that did that to her, but he was certain that she already had. And many more, from the look of it.
"Sola . . . "
What? he demanded of himself. What are you going to say to her? 'It would be an honest death'? 'An HONORABLE death'? Where is the honor in letting yourself die? Where's YOUR honor in even considering it?
The wound was clotting, visibly, and her remaining eye was clear and strong, burning with orange fire. She would not welcome death, and if he suggested such a thing he would only become contemptible to her, to himself.
"Does," he said, "does it hurt?" He drew one claw across the flesh beneath his eye.
"Oh, like a bastard," she replied, grinning. (And oh gods yes, those were her teeth he could see through the lips of the wound.)
He forced a smile back at her, a hard one that showed no teeth, which were clenched behind it over a scream.
"G'night, Rhys." She yawned narrowly and tipped out of view again. "Achar."
"Goodnight, Sola," the young one whispered, on his knees and gazing upward like a supplicant. "Goodnight, Rhys."
"'Night." Rhys dismissed the young one with a wave, and hardly a thought. Fear and doubt crept into his mind over the frictionless silence.
We lost. Dear gods, we lost . . .
Night Thoughts, Day Dreams
He couldn't sleep. Sola was exhausted from battle and the forced march that would have followed. The young one would be tired, too, and he knew no better. But Rhys knew, and he had slept long, dragged or carried by the others. His small injuries stung him, and his mind was too alert. He sat up to clean his scales, to lick his wounds, and think.
The Pythian tribe should have died out centuries ago. They were too cruel, too savage, and they bore no females. Perhaps it was divine punishment, a curse or a disease. Or maybe they sacrificed their girl children to some dark god for favor. It didn't matter. They needed females, so they took them.
It was an option to fight, to send the mothers and children away and keep back the invaders with the blood of a battle. But battles could be lost, often were lost, to the Pythians. Prisoners were taken, male and female, young and old. Achar was barely past his first season.
Achar--Rhys felt a sudden flush of horror--he was pretty. Young and lithe and golden-scaled. He had none of the scars that age and experience brought to the body or the mind. He was a child! But a child like that would be more attractive to the Pythians than the ripest female of age. He was pretty, and he could be easily forced.
The children, the other children, might have gotten away. The battle had been long, lasting into the dark. If only a few of the young ones had gotten away, that would be worth whatever was going to happen to him, or to Achar, or even to Sola. If they hadn't gotten away, they had probably been killed by now. Better that than to be kept and used. Death was no honor, not when you could make the choice to fight, but the weak had no such choices. For the children, death could be a mercy.
Sola should have gone with them. Even with no young of her own, she could have. Females had to be protected, it wasn't fair, but it was true. If not from hunting, fighting or hard work, then at the very least from the danger the Pythians posed. How many females had volunteered to stay and fight? Too many to number, enough to feel guilty about for the rest of his life. He should have done something. Females had to be protected from themselves, too. Their emotions were strong, they crowded out all reason. Of course they had wanted to fight, to kill. He should have stopped them. He should have forced them.
Rhys heaved a hopeless sigh as he cleaned the remains of an unlucky Pythian soldier from his claws.
He couldn't have stopped Sola, not even if he'd tied her to a tree. If he'd tried anything so stupid, she would have ripped his guts out his neck. And the other females, even the ones with young to protect, they had been livid. If he had got in their way, they would have trampled him to death. All the males of the tribe could not have stood against so much rage.
He couldn't have stopped them, but they shouldn't be here. Such pride and fury, what good would it do them now? Now, he could only wish death for them, for all of them, and for himself.
He curled on the floor of his cage and clutched his arms over his head. Enough. No more. It was all so pointless now. They had lived, and they had been captured. Now they were damned, for the rest of their days . . . and the nights. The long nights . . .
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Pancakes? Morning . . . ?
Rhys awoke with a jerk. Sola was never going to make any pancakes ever again, and he . . .
He was swaying again.
"Achar!"
"Rhys!" the young one warbled. "They're going to kill us, aren't they? We're gonna die, aren't we? We're all gonna die!"
"What?"
BANG! BANG! CLUNK.
He felt a solid jar through the body of the cage. The length of chain began to rattle out above him, leaving his stomach a good twenty feet behind. "Gah!"
"Rhys?" Sola's voice. "Hey! Where are you taking them?"
Rhys hit bottom and peered blindly up at the mews. Achar landed a moment later, bawling. Sola was high above, invisible, and there she remained.
"Where are you taking them? Hey!"
The chains and pulleys were being operated by a small group of hollow-eyed dragons. Males of various tribes, none Pythian. There were heads of horns, spikes, the occasional straggly crest of feathers, but no webbed membranes. No enemies, just people.
"Hey, what's going on--" Rhys felt the words curdle in his throat.
No. Not people. Not anymore. Each was hobbled by a pair of irons. Their gazes were unblinking, their expressions drawn and blank. Some drooled. Used up. Used by the Pythians until there was no soul left in them, only a body that could be given labors. These were the dead ones.
Sola banged and clattered her tail against the bars, her cage jittered madly above them. "Answer me!" she demanded. "You stupid sacks of shit! Tell me where you're taking them! ANSWER ME!"
His cage was opened, his hands bound behind him with strong cord. He did not struggle. Even if he had managed to kill one, it would do no good. One empty shell released from living death, things made a hundred times worse for him, and perhaps for the others as well. More cages were being emptied, though only Achar was familiar to him. All males.
Not thinking, not looking back, he allowed himself to be led from the cavernous room with the others, guided into a narrow hallway by the dead ones. Sola shrieked and rattled behind them. Her last desperate cry reached his ears as a colorless whisper, "Rhys . . . Rhys!" drowning in Achar's sobs.
"Goodbye, Sola," he murmured to the dusty ground. He would think of her again, forever, but he would see her nevermore.
The silence was organic, it grew over them. Achar was either too tired or too scared to cry any longer. Weariness curtailed any desire the others might have had to converse. The path was endless, their pace never above a shuffle that even the wounded could keep, the walls unmarked, unbroken and dim. The only sounds were the whisper of their steps, the hiss of their breath, and the rustle of chains. After a time, there was a breeze, cold, faint and silent. They came to its source, a great dark hole broken into the rock, and there they were allowed to stop. Some of the prisoners, the wounded and weak, were shivering. The dead ones did not.
A bent-up wretch of a female limped out of the shadows. The flesh hung on her like the folds of a vulture's neck.
"Sit!" She spat the word like a curse. "Rest here." Her clawed hand clamped down on the shoulder of a captive blue. "Not you. You come with me."
Flanked by a pair of the dead ones, she dragged him back into the darkness.
A low babble of voices followed from within the cavern, but beyond that Rhys couldn't tell what was going on. Nobody was screaming, and that at least was good. Wearied from the long night and emotionally exhausted, it wasn't long before he yielded to the female's command and settled down to rest. A listless male beside him shifted in his sleep and slumped on to the gray-green's shoulder. Rhys leaned back gratefully against him and shut his eyes.
"Rhys!"
He started and brought his head off the ground, disoriented by the change in his surroundings. Gods, what was that noise? It was ragged, hysterical. It ejected him from sleep with claws bared, muscles tensed and ready to fight or flee.
The group of them had dwindled to a pile of three slumbering males, and Achar, who was trembling in the clutches of the horrid dragoness.
"Hush, my angel," she hissed in the gold's ear. "I promise it won't hurt."
"Rhys!" the young one implored of him.
The gray-green forced his breath to slow, his body to unclench. Gods! What did Achar expect him to do?
He lied then, because it would stop the gold's cries, and then he could go back to sleep: "It'll be all right, Achar. Just go with her. It'll be fine."
"Yes, my angel," the female whispered. Her grin was hideous. "Just fine."
"I have to pee," the young one said.
She giggled at that, and in her laughter she might have been the world's oldest and most jaded child. "Oh, I'm sure we can find somewhere for you to do that! Yes, angel. Come along."
When Achar looked to him for assurance, Rhys cast his eyes away.
"Rhys . . . "
The gray-green flinched.
Uneasily, and with many a piteous look back, Achar allowed to female to push him into her lair.
Rhys settled back against the wall and itched the binding cord on the stone. It didn't help much. He gave ear to the voices coming out of the darkness once again as he tried to rid himself of the uncomfortable sensation. The words were still too distant to be intelligible, but the tone of this conversation was much different from the snippets he had overheard before. Achar was still whimpering, though with a new and strange flavor of urgency, and the female seemed to be making some sickly attempt to be nice. The effect was perverse, but at least there were no further cries for aid.
He could not make himself sleep again, and itching the cord soon became all-consuming. It passed the time until Achar was led back out, when the small discomfort become suddenly and staggeringly unimportant. Now Rhys understood why he had thought the change in the female's deportment so disturbing. He found himself wishing he could cup his hands in front of him and hide his face.
Pretty, his thoughts babbled. I knew he was too pretty. I knew he was too pretty, I knew it!
Achar was held standing, bounded by a pair of the dead ones, who seemed as oblivious to his condition as to their own. He was doubled over as if by some great agony, eyes shining and focus knocked askew, unsteady legs forced to walk entirely through the strength of the others. But all of this was secondary to one glaring, humiliating fact: Achar's shaft was stretched out before him like a rod of burnished iron, completely unsheathed and painfully erect.
The female swept back out of the cave, the toothless grin still plastered over her maw, and blocked them with her frail body. She leaned into Achar and tenderly kissed him, purring all the while. The gold arched towards her touch, his already-engorged length swelling a little more beneath her attentions.
"Goodbye, my angel," she said.
It seemed the young one was trying to reply, but a strangled gasp was all that escaped him. He was hauled down the corridor, destination unknown, gnawing on his lower lip and twisting his hands in his bonds. His whimpering faded, and was finally quashed by the distance.
"You, up!" the female commanded, all business as before. This time she sank her bony fingers into the shoulder of a sleeping green. Yawning, the dragon complied with her orders and disappeared into the cavern. A few moments later, the low talking began again.
Rhys leaned back against the wall, pained and sweating. Dear gods, what does she DO to them in there?
He would have his answer soon enough.
Rhys knew this was a really stupid time to be questioning his sexuality. He was waiting to have some unknown, humiliating thing done to him, which seemed as likely to snap his sanity as not. It was his fault Sola had been brought to this evil place, because of him she was either going to die or something worse. Achar had somehow been brought to a state of incoherent arousal by the most vile female Rhys had ever made acquaintance with. And he himself was tired, sore, and the itching cord was driving him crazy.
Any of these would have formed a more tolerable, a more appropriate topic to occupy his mind. And, he realized with a sick little laugh, it wasn't as if it mattered anyway. It didn't matter if his most secret sexual fantasy was to have it with three females at once or make passionate love to a sheep. There would be no females and no sheep for the remainder of his existence, only Pythians, male ones at that.
That was the problem.
But it wasn't as if he had dreamed of this. Nightmares, maybe, since the first time his inclinations had made themselves known. He had known about the Pythians even before that, known they were evil, and that they fucked males. Knowing had raised no positive feeling within him. Anything to do with the Pythians was an abomination.
So how could he, how dare he, look upon another male with anything but the utmost friendship and camaraderie?
He sighed and tipped his head back against the wall. The taboo wasn't as strong as some, but even a mild association with the Pythians would poison a thing. Sometimes a child was born with frilled ears, tiny little fringes of bone and membrane, they might have been cute. They were hardly anything like a Pythian crest. The custom was to cut them away, immediately after hatching, with shears. They would be burned.
If only he could have cut this thing from himself as well! He loved Sola. He had been with her, and loved being with her. He should have wed her. She was alone with her mother, and the whole tribe would have been relieved to let him care for her. A mate in place of a father or brother would keep her from being hurt, from hurting others, or herself. He was a leader, a fine hunter, there was nothing to keep him from taking a mate, or maybe even being a father . . . Except this thing, this one, awful thing. Males who could think of other males that way were not husband, leader or father material. They were as likely to be driven out of the tribe as tolerated. He knew what he was, and he couldn't expose Sola to that.
And now, well, wasn't this fitting? Wasn't it fair? A fine punishment for a weak and stupid male. Now he had lost the good things in his life, the things he had refused in his perversity, and he would have the bad thing, forever. And if he had tried to spare Sola, well, now her pain would be added to his own. Hers, and all the others he had brought down with him.
Yet now, even now, he could not stop himself. He could not change.
When the green was dragged back out of the cavern, he was bent double and moaning as Achar had been, but for one glaring difference. His mouth was clamped tightly over his shaft, sucking madly as his body convulsed with spasms of pleasure. The dead ones who had charge of him were having a great deal of difficulty keeping him in their grasp. He kept sliding to the floor, twitching and bucking his hips, his wings spread wide.
Rhys eeped softly, a sound that had not escaped his lips since childhood. The sight struck him where his own perversity ran the deepest, and he was unprepared. It was inexplicable, unashamed, and, oh gods, he found it sexy. He couldn't look away. He was terrified by his own reaction. He couldn't be thinking these things, not here, not now, not ever!
A hand clapped down on his shoulder and he nearly shrieked from the shock of it. The old dragoness leaned into his field of vision, "Since you're so curious, " she hauled him to his feet with surprising strength, "come with me."
His mouth dried up, along with any arousal he might have felt. He swallowed with a click. Oh, gods . . . Dear gods . . . Have mercy . . .
Floating in the darkness, lit from above, was a chair. It was some pale hardwood, worn shiny, and bolted to the floor. Rhys didn't need to be told he was supposed to sit in it. The dragoness jerked his tail through the back of the chair and secured it to his bound wrists with a thicker length of cord.
Rhys grit his teeth.
He understood violence, blood, and the screams of death and battle. But in battle one could move, press forward, or even run if one was weak. One would die, run, or conquer. In his life he had seen all these things, but he had never encountered this slow, relentless erosion of autonomy. No battle, no choice, only a gradual accumulation of bonds, ropes that rasped his scales and curtailed his motion. Any screams here would be those of abject helplessness. There was no way to win, even if he managed to struggle out of his bonds and kill her, the Pythians would still have him, and they would only come up with some new initiation, some worse one, before he was put to use as a slave. He could do nothing, and as nothing ever had, it terrified him.
But they didn't scream, the others didn't scream. It can't be that bad, even Achar didn't scream . . .
She was working in the shadows with something glass and clinking. When she turned back around, she had a pink teacup in her hands. It was decorated with a webwork of of cracks and half-empty--half-full. Of something.
She did not so much offer it to him as shove it in his face. He shifted his whole weight backwards to get away from it, and from her, sealing his lips and twisting his head to the side.
She folded her arms, dangling the drink from deft fingers at one elbow.
"I don't have to do this," she said. "There are other ways."
And now, surrounded by darkness, in a deep cavern with excellent acoustics, he could hear someone screaming. Helpless, hopeless, under some torment devised for those who wouldn't submit to this. Some other torment, just as unknown, but which could make a dragon scream in fear, and doubtless pain.
She smirked at him. "I don't care, myself, but I think you would find it more pleasant to drink the Draught."
His voice had deserted him. Another scream in the distance impressed upon him the urgency of the situation, and he made himself nod. If he had to sit and listen to that dismal crying any longer, he would have started up himself.
She pushed the cup at him again and this time he accepted it. The thin liquid was bitter and slightly slimy, but not enough to make him spit it out. There was an aftertaste, terribly unpleasant, of cinnamon. It was like eating toast in a sewer.
He could not tolerate the silence. "What is it?" he asked.
She weighed her options. "There is a certain kind of moss that grows around here," she told him. "When it is steeped in rainwater, that liquid is produced. It has a pleasant effect." Her smile was at once cynical and pleased. "The Pythians would probably use it more often themselves, if not for the consequences."
He might have been slapped. "You're not Pythian . . . " Of course she wasn't! Couldn't be!
"Mm," she said. She had set the teacup aside and was wiping the notation from a piece of slate.
"But, why, then? Why do you . . . ?"
She ignored him, busying herself in the darkness. There were shelves and things around them, hidden in the glare of the single light. She navigated them almost silently, and he was well able to hear the cries of that unknown other, undergoing some torment in the bowels of the fortress. It was insupportable. It was too dark.
Upon further consideration, Rhys thought he might rather throw in his lot with the screaming dragon. He understood pain, he could accept it. You could fight through pain, past it, even crying and screaming. Pain could become a your strength. In this dark place all he could feel was weakness, fear. He was afraid she would hurt him, yes, but he was afraid she wouldn't. He was afraid that, somewhere deep in his traitorous heart, he might like what she was going to do to him, and that would hurt him more than any pain.
"You're certainly taking long enough," she said, and he gasped and sat bolt upright in the chair. "Nervous, are we?"
Rhys dropped his gaze from her, reflexively ashamed.
"Haven't got all day," she grumbled. She reached into the darkness and came back with the teacup and a carafe full of mellow, green liquid. Her body was old and bent, but her hands were eerily steady as she measured out another half a cup. She didn't spill a drop. "Here. Go on, then."
He held his breath (What else can I do? What else am I supposed to do?) and drank.
His stomach did not accept the second dose so readily. The cinnamon taste was no help, except as incentive to keep it down. It would taste worse coming up.
Gods, why did they keep it so cold in here? So cold and so dark, it was like being buried alive. He tried to shift in his seat and the tendons in his wings and elbows creaked maddeningly. He felt his mind trying to fly from him. I don't want to be here. This can't be happening to me. I don't want this to happen to me. This can't be real, this can't be real. . .
Rhys shut his eyes and bit down on the thickness of his tongue. Bit down until the pain of reality grounded him, brought back the feel of his weight in the chair, and the cold air over his scales. Madness lay in such denial, and he was not ready to go mad yet. Not over so little a thing as darkness and cold. Sola would be ashamed of him.
Sola . . .
He sighed. It ached to think of her, it ached to know he would never see her again, to know what the Pythians would do to her, but she lent him a little courage. She always had done, and the memory of her even seemed to lend him a little light, a little warmth.
But it was not a good warmth, it was not a chaste warmth, and it frightened him in ways Sola never had. No mere memory could engender such trembling heat in his gut. He clamped down on his tongue again, but it did him little good. No rush of pain restored his senses. It didn't hurt, oh gods, it didn't hurt at all--
It was wuuuuunderful!
"Feeling better?" an ancient voice rasped.
Rhys managed a tiny nod. He dropped his jaw and drew a short, panting breath. Better, yes. Kind of . . . Distracted, but it was a nice feeling, warm. Sola. Thinking of Sola warmed him pleasantly inside. In his mind she was so close he could touch her, and suddenly he wanted to. He wanted her, he needed her, he needed her like air. The fine scales of her throat, the soft fabric of her wings . . . When he touched her it used to be so good, the sounds she made, the scent of her . . .
Unbidden, the image of the frantic green dragon rose within him, a bubble of memory from some unknown depths. Had he been thinking of that? That male, so unashamed, absorbed only in his own delight, like an animal. It was . . . It might be nice. Seeing it had made him feel scared, but . . . But good in a close and secret place. He fondled the memory and basked in the slow pleasure that it engendered. The fear was gone now.
There was a delicate firmness in his sheath. His idle fancy was bringing him erect. He shivered, wanting it. His hips twitched against the wood of the chair and he bit back a groan. Any moment now . . . Any moment . . .
The female was smiling at him.
"You wanted to know why I stay here," she said, "why I work for them? You wanted to know why they don't chain me, but I don't run?"
Did he? That was a long time ago. He didn't care, really. Must've been trying to be polite.
"I stay," she said, "because in a few minutes, you're going to be absolutely helpless--you know that, don't you? And then I can do whatever I want with you." She touched a finger to his chin and brought his muzzle up. Avid contentment was in her eyes. "I like that."
Achar. . . The bubble of memory burst, replaced by another that was wreathed in shame and pity. Achar, and that sick look of desperation on his face . . . He felt the chill of the air again. No wonder you were so pleased with him, you bitch.
The lazy feeling of heat shuddered within him. He thought of Achar, and it was horrible to think of him, at the mercy of this malign dragoness. So young, so afraid . . . He should have done something, should have rescued the boy from this dark place. If he'd only known . . . But instead of releasing Achar's bonds, in his mind's eye he saw himself approaching the young gold in the chair, forcing his muzzle down, and taking pleasure of him while he writhed with need of his own . . .
He cried out, a wavering sound as weak as the young one's whimpers. Oh, gods, what's wrong with my MIND? He wanted, things he had never wanted, so much, so many things, dirty things, sexy things, things he'd never dared dream of . . . He struggled away from an incoherency of need, need for anything, everything, and stimulation above all else. He didn't want this. He didn't want Achar, not Achar nor Sola nor the green dragon nor any male, but above all else he didn't want this . . .
And they would not MAKE him!
He fought for control, not because it was right or good, but because it was his nature to fight. They could force his body, the gods knew they would, but he would give them no dominion over his mind.
He brought his head up with painful slowness and fixed his gaze on the wretched female. When revulsion quelled the fevered thoughts of what he might do to her, he thought he might master the drug. He thought he might win.
Her upper lip writhed over her toothless maw as she watched him. He grinned at her, confidently he grinned, but behind his expression he was half-crazy with fear again. If she touched him now, touched him anywhere, he would lose himself. Foul as she was, she was still a female, and there was a deep, wet slit between her legs where he could bury his need, again and again . . . His shaft was stirring and he clamped his legs together to keep it inside. Her dagger-gaze slid down his body, to his groin, and rested there. Her focus was an intolerable pressure. She was leaning forward, she was reaching towards him . . .
"Oh, gods!" he cried aloud.
She withdrew with a snarl, "I will not touch you. You hold back all you want, but you will never make me touch you!" Hysterical in her disgust she grasped the cup again, filled it to overflowing in her trembling hands. She snatched his head back by the horns and forced him to drink.
Rhys choked. Some of the liquid leaked out of his nose, but he had swallowed almost all. It was too much, and he knew now he was lost. He knew, but it was distant knowledge, unimportant. His senses were misting into a fever haze. He had a dim impression of the dragoness; she seemed pleased with him. He wondered why, and then he forgot her completely.
A tinny, distant voice was echoing in his skull, but he could not bring himself to understand it. It seemed to know this, and it repeated patiently until it penetrated his consciousness.
"Your name?"
He drifted a long, pleasant while before it occurred that he might be expected to answer. His tongue had gone soft somehow, and it tasted funny. Cinnamon, and blood. He couldn't make it work for him.
"Rhys . . ." came a faint, slurred reply. He smiled. Someone answered for him. That was nice. How nice.
"And your tribe?"
"Sss-Siwa," the faint voice obliged.
The questions continued, and the faint voice answered them. That was good, because he couldn't, didn't want to. For the moment he was content to let his mind drift and be bathed in pleasant sensations. Every sensation was pleasant now, and he wanted to explore them.
He moved his body in slow, slight waves over the pressure of the chair and the smooth grain of the wood. No fantasy was necessary, the rhythmic motion was fascinating, and it brought him erect with incredible speed. His breath caught in his throat and he froze, the slick feeling of his length gliding into the open blotted out all else. When sense returned, the strange, faint voice was moaning loudly, and his body was shaking like a leaf after a storm. The tremors born of ecstasy brought pleasure of their own as his hands shook and slid against the frayed cord that bound them.
The questions were growing sharper, interspersed with snarls. He tried to still his body, to stop the wonderful sensations, so that he could understand . . .
" . . . not yet! Damn you, not yet!"
He was slapped across the muzzle, hard. The sting of the blow faded rapidly, leaving a rich and gentle warmth that washed through his body like a wave of bathwater. His erection pulsed in tandem with the surges of this delicious tide, as did every fiber of his being, nose to tail and back again. He would have cried out, but he was drowning. He would have arched his back, but the rush of sensation was already too strong. His body sagged limp in the chair as his mind was pulled under, into deep, dark waters.
Rhys blinked lazily, savoring the feel of it. His gaze drifted, left to right and back again, wondering at the change. He couldn't seem to think, to remember. His thoughts echoed in his head until they lost all meaning. The world was slow and blurred like a humid afternoon.
Moving in a dream, he sat forward and looked down. Kneeling there between his legs, staring up at him with deep, blue eyes, was the most beautiful, delicate creature he had ever seen. Male? Female? Through the heat haze, it was impossible to tell. But he didn't care. He only wanted it to touch him. Oh, and it was!
The young dragon was running its talons along the length of him with maddening care. No wonder it felt so hot! Each gentle touch drove him closer, closer to climax and release, but never quite over the edge. Rhys growled softly. His hips quivered, muscles tensed. It had to end soon, had to, or he would no longer be able to breathe. In his desperation he tried to reach down and help the young one along, but the attempt at motion only conveyed an intolerably sharp tug to his bonds. The added shock of pleasure left him faint. Too weak to try again, he was completely at the golden dragon's mercy.
It had begun to lick at him. He wanted to moan, he wanted to weep, but the new intensity of sensation had robbed him of his air. Each ragged, panting breath came affixed to the tail of the next. No room for sound. Now? Surely now? Surely now, or he would die! But though the depth of his pleasure increased, it was never fast enough to bring release, nor slow enough to give him some respite. He would kill that little dragon. Kill it because he hated it. Hated it because he loved it. Kill, or die. He could not move to kill.
Please, he begged the cool blue eyes of his tormentor. Begged for mercy, begged for end. Please, please, please . . .
The beautiful creature indulged him, and slowly pulled his length into its warm, damp mouth. Rhys drew in a short, sharp gasp, a shriek of air, but that was all. He had lost his breath, he was losing his mind, he felt he might lose his life. But it was good to lose everything, to sink into bliss and lose all else. He didn't care if it killed him. To die this way would be so much better than to spend the rest of his life in misery and pain . . .
PAIN!!
The dragon was digging its needle sharp teeth into his flesh. Gods, it had teeth like a serpent! Rhys felt tears welling in his eyes. Even the agony was laced with intolerable pleasure, so much that he was losing the ability to distinguish one from the other. All sensations were as one as ethereal beauty bit down hard. Blood ran out like semen, and Rhys finally found the strength to scream . . .
He opened his eyes, the cry still echoing in his mind. Had he closed his eyes? With cold shock, he understood where he was, though not what had happened. Vision had failed him. He was no longer processing his other senses, but touch alone remained. He could feel where he was. He could feel everything. Every scale of his body, every inch of throbbing flesh, had grown more sensitive than his shaft had ever been, and that was thudding so hard he felt the bloodflow must be visible.
His need was all the more intense, now that he remembered where it was coming from, but he was not free to stroke, suck, lick or bring himself to climax in any way. His hands and tail were bound behind him (Oh, gods! So tightly!), wings pinioned under his arms, and the back of the chair held him ramrod straight. He felt it all. The cord was frayed, and the tiny filaments brushed his wrists and tail maddeningly. The chair pushed into his back and legs more eagerly than a female in her first season. He could feel the grain of the wood and the braid of the cord, both delicious. He writhed in hopeless need, even as a wide and drunken grin spread over his maw.
He panted, because he could not bear the pressure of his tongue against his teeth. He felt the breath escaping him, warm and curling against his chin and chest, counterpoint to the almost electrical tingle of the cold. Every time he blinked he shuddered, and the shuddering itself was misery. It was too much, too detailed and intense, but nowhere near enough. He needed more, needed to be driven past sanity and comprehension, he could not tolerate this exquisite awareness. Madness, or at least delirium, was coming, but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. Still, he could hear the questioning voice of the female, and if he strained past the feel of her breath on his face, he could almost understand . . .
"Take him. I have all I need, and he's useless now. Get him out of my sight."
He felt the approach of other creatures, a palpable change in the temperature around him. Every fiber of his being cried out in protest, but the vibration of a single syllable would have driven him over the edge. He knew he must not make a sound, but when they seized him, claw against scale, sending violent waves of ecstasy clear through his bones, he HOWLED.
It was, at last, sufficient. Something snapped within him, and darkness blossomed in his mind. In the darkness he knew that he was weeping. Feverish, and helplessly weeping, for even in the darkness the sensation of hot tears rolling down his muzzle was torment enough to keep him crying and screaming for the rest of his life.
Rhys continued to weep softly, almost gratefully, as the dream haze poured in around him, stealing away the misery of each individual touch and leaving him in total, agonizing arousal. His fantasy did not disappoint. Through the heat he beheld his salvation and release. The young dragon stood beside him, golden in the misty light of his vision. He wanted to wipe his eyes, to clear his sight, but his arms still wouldn't move. His tears flowed in a steady stream, though whether they were made of pain or happiness, he was unfit to judge.
He ducked his head, ashamed at the emotion, and found to his delight that his spine curved downwards with phenomenal ease. He grinned openly to find the tip of his shaft well within reach. The golden dragon purred and licked his neck in wordless encouragement. Held back from sweet relief for so long, he nearly drooled at the prospect. He was so close even a breath would tip him over. Whining anxiously, he bent forward and gave himself a cautious lick.
Oh, gods!
His body seized up in pleasure, arching, then convulsing violently. His wings snapped open to quiver at his sides. Briefly, mercifully, he blacked out.
He had not come. As awareness filtered back into his fevered mind, he knew he had not come. The young dragon was licking rapidly over his face. He moaned in desperation, and it had sense enough to stop. What ever had happened had felt so good, so good, but through some diabolic miracle he had not come. He would not, could not. He sobbed.
His illusory companion eeped in soft concern and nuzzled between his legs. Rhys arched back and howled, raking his claws across the floor.
Stop . . . Stop! Oh, mercy, don't stop!
But the contact was achingly brief, and matters were left in his own trembling claws once more. There was nothing for it. He leaned forward, hopeless, opening his mouth wide . . .
His sense of touch sizzled and screamed for release, respite from this endless fullness, endless need, but none came. He sucked himself towards orgasm without mercy, without shame, with all the power of stimulation his lips and teeth and tongue could give. He was weak with desire, too weak to cry out, too weak to stop the frantic motions of his mouth. His body was pleasuring itself now, acting on pure instinct, and his mind just along for the ride. He worked himself harder, faster, bathing his length in saliva all the way down to the base. He felt the pinch of his teeth, nearly hard enough to draw blood, sending shudders though his hips. His wings and tail lashed, throwing him side to side in frenzied rhythm. For a mere instant, he diverted some of his energy to a long, hollow cry--cry for hopelessness, cry for aid--but when his jaws clamped down again, his body only sought ecstasy with new abandon.
A delicate touch brushed his shoulder. Such gentle caress could only come from the hand of the young dragon, no other could help him! Rhys felt a surge of hope. Maybe it would stop him, or grant him release. Maybe it would kill him, different release but just as good. Needle-fine claws pricked his shoulders and nudged him forward, an imperceptible change in his orientation. Gentle arms encircled his waist, holding him safe and close. His tail was drawn sideways, and a strange firmness pressed beneath it.
Rhys moaned. That pressure didn't come from claw or tail. There was only one possibility, and no longer any room for shame or decorum in his mind. He could do no more than gasp and push back against the firmness in excitement. The young dragon was a male.
He dropped his shaft, unthinking, and refocused his sharp senses on the young one's slow caress. A thin tongue flicked over his neck and one small claw drifted into his lap and nestled there between his legs. Rhys hissed and nodded his approval, powerless to do anything but feel. The firmness pressed against him more insistently as he tried to relax spasming muscles and grant the male entrance. It made little difference. When the male wanted him, he took him, and soon Rhys was shrieking openly as an entirely new sensation forced its way past the tiny star of muscle beneath his tail, and deep inside . . .
Yessssssss!
The pressure at the tip of his shaft was beyond words, beyond feeling. The pleasure was absolute, uncaring. Body and soul cried out together for an end to sensation, unconsciousness or even death. But he was vividly aware as the little dragon began to rock against him, in and out. Rhys rocked with him, pleasure mounting pleasure. Time slipped, and all cohesiveness was lost. This was existence, eternity, madness without end . . . And, gods have mercy, he never wanted it to end.
The gold dragon began to growl. Rhys felt the dig of teeth at the back of his neck. The male's movements rocked him more violently now, he was beginning to feel faintly dizzy and ill. Rhys shoved these feelings aside, embraced the new intensity, and craved more. He dipped his head and brought his shaft back into his mouth, overriding all unpleasant sensation. A distant part of him was aware of the increasing fervor of the young one's motions, but it meant nothing to him, until he felt the fullness inside him spasm and begin to trickle a delicious warmth.
Doon't . . . Rhys mewled around his length and gazed upward, supplicating. Don't, oh, don't! Don't let it end. Mustn't end . . . It's not FAIR!
But the male knew nothing of his desperate wish. The thrusts came ever harder, ever deeper, and a loud shriek in two voices shattered the air as the little dragon came.
Rhys lost everything in that moment. The golden dragon, the reason for his eden. The wretched female and her pink, cracked cup. The Pythians, the cages. Sola. Sadness. Pain. Even himself.
But it came back. Rushing back, a tide that swept away madness and oblivion in its wake. The dream was dying, and he mourned it with his very soul.
With a low moan, he lifted his head from the floor. Sickened, he replaced it; it was a fragile ornament of glass, and if he wasn't careful it would break. After a few moments of dizzying darkness, he cautiously opened an eye. Dark bars, stone, and a dull, white light that made his glass head ache, nothing more. He closed the eye, just as carefully. What he saw made no sense to him, and there was no point in looking. He heard a strange voice, faint voice, oddly familiar, whispering, "Mercy . . . Mercy . . . " He cracked the eye again to see where it came from.
Mercy . . . Mercy . . .
His world was split down the middle. The half that made sense existed in darkness. He closed the eye. The last thing he saw was a flash of gold.
Sleep closed in around the edges of his battered mind. There were dreams, but they were gentle with him now; they rocked him, soothing away all thought and feeling. Exhausted beyond struggling, he let them take him where they wished.
The golden dragon skimmed the surface of his unconsciousness with a fluidity of form impossible in reality. At one instant it was unmistakably, undeniably male. The next it would be quite obviously, delicately feminine. Shedding shapes like glistening water, sometimes the gold seemed to be neither sex . . . And at others it was definitely both. The dreams that the glittering creature nurtured in his sleep would have been very wet under different circumstances. But these pleasures were dim and faded, washes done up in blurry watercolor. The vivid torment of earlier visions was all but forgotten. In his sleep, he smiled.
A deep diver must surface slowly, and Rhys was a long time in waking. He saw himself lying on a cold, stone floor. The gold was snuggled beside him, but then he wasn't. Blinking a little, Rhys glanced around himself, wondering what he had been looking at, what he had been thinking of. He shivered . . .
He shivered. It was cold here, that was the only clear thing. Someone had replaced his brain with plucked cotton while he slept. He was foggy and slow . . . And heavy. Was this really waking? With utmost effort he wobbled up on all fours, just a moment before falling back down. He hit the floor hard, knocked the wind from his lungs, but the pain of the fall was disconcertingly distant. Exhausted, and not a little confused, he gave up and lie still, panting.
"Ssssst!"
Reluctantly, he allowed his head to roll in the direction of the sound. There was a dragon. Yellow-green. With horns, three of those, brownish. And a yellow-plated chest. It was talking to him. Moving, indistinctly through a forest of dark lines. He couldn't understand a word it said. After a time it seemed to realize this and began to make a single, exaggerated gesture, sweeping one hand down and out from its belly. Rhys watched lackadaisically; it made no sense. Looking for some meaning, he imitated the motion . . . And shrieked as his mind sizzled back to life with the pulsation of orgasm.
After all the dreams, all the torment, the lightest brush of his hand had finally done it. He came, and continued to come, slicking his stomach and the floor beneath with an impossibly long stream of thick wetness. It was not without pleasure, but far from without pain. He screamed as he climaxed, blessing the yellow-green with one breath and swearing to kill him with the next. The spurt became a trickle, and finally ceased. His shaft retreated into the protection of his sheath, sore as a bruise, and he sighed in abject relief.
"Better now?" the yellow-green asked.
Rhys replied with effort, and a wince, "Think I'm gonna throw up."
"Oh, don't worry about that," the dragon said. "You will."
Rhys didn't worry. He already was.
The helpful stranger cringed, and began trying to direct the gray-green to the back of the cell. "Listen, there's a trench, a really deep trench . . . At the back, where the wall is . . . At the back! Oh, hell."
Rhys was trying to reach this fabled trench of which his fellow prisoner spoke, but his unsteady gate would only take him a few paces in the proper direction before he stumbled and was sick again.
"Careful! Careful!" the yellow-green cried. He strained forward as far as he could, reaching through the bars to help, but no dragon had arms that long. All he could do was keep trying to advise, "To you right, your right . . . Your other right! Oh, never mind it . . . Ah! Ah! Not on the blanket, you need . . . Okay. No. That's okay, you can use mine later. There, that's it! Nearly there, nearly there . . . There!" He slumped to the floor with a relieved sigh, spent.
Rhys was too busy loosing his last meal down the narrow gully to express his gratitude.
He was ill until there was nothing left inside of him to come up, and even then his stomach refused to unclench itself for some time. Perhaps an hour later, he crawled back to the front of the cell, where the mess was less sickish, and collapsed.
"Ye gods!" the yellow-green exclaimed, a mix of horror and admiration. "What did she do to you?"
"Too much," Rhys said. "Or not enough."
He slept. He did not dream.